The Break-Up Clause by Niamh Hargan
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Benjamin is headed for the same place she is, apparently, but he stops short as soon as he notices her. How startling it seems to be, finally seeing him like this, when it feels like they have been orbiting one another all night.
‘Uh, hi,’ she says.
‘Hi,’ he replies. ‘You look nice.’
And the thing is that so many other people have said that – or something like it – to her already this evening. But it hasn’t felt at all the way it does when he says it.
‘Thanks,’ she says, hearing how her own voice comes out sounding a little thin, a little fluttery. ‘Are you having a good night?’
‘It’s been all right,’ Benjamin says, and Fia tracks his gaze as he nods through the doorway towards Ryan, still chatting happily with the others in the group she left. ‘So, you and him. Real talk. Is it a romantic thing?’
Fia thinks about it for a second. ‘No,’ she replies, and then, for the sake of full disclosure, she clarifies, her voice low. ‘I mean, I’ve had sex with him. But not in a romantic way.’ She watches that information land before she speaks again. ‘Also, this really is none of your business.’
A smile twitches at his lips. ‘Hey, I can’t know who my wife is bumping uglies with?’
Fia’s expression contorts into sudden alarm. Of all the people coming and going or clustered in groups around the lounge, there’s probably nobody quite within earshot. However, that seems much more like a matter of good fortune than any calculation on Benjamin’s part. And by now, they’re five weeks into the summer. Having made it to the halfway point, she’d much prefer not to let their particular cat out of its bag at this stage. Instinctively, she edges into an open door just adjacent to where they’re standing.
‘That’s a horrendous expression,’ she says, aware of him following her as she moves. ‘And less of the wife talk,’ she adds, though she’d acknowledge the hushed tones are probably unnecessary now. There’s no longer much of a threat of being overheard.
Benjamin looks around, taking in their new surroundings. It’s all wood panelling and heavy curtains, an empty grate in the fireplace and, in the centre of the room, a large mahogany billiard table. Or is it pool? Snooker? Fia has no idea what the difference is. She’s a pretty decent shot, though, having been schooled by her brother in her younger years.
‘Why are we in here?’ Benjamin asks.
Actually, Fia isn’t altogether sure. She didn’t deliberately decide to come into this room, much less did she deliberately decide to bring him with her.
‘We’re in here because you can’t be trusted to keep your big mouth shut,’ she hisses, which feels like it must be the truth. It does, at least, feed into a very familiar dynamic between the two of them. It avoids anything more … nebulous.
In any event, he ignores it altogether.
‘You wanna play pool?’ he asks.
She’s taken aback. ‘Not really.’
He just cocks his head, as if in sympathy with her. ‘Are you afraid you’ll lose?’
Fia fights the sudden urge to laugh out loud. ‘Oh, Benjamin,’ she replies instead, all condescension, with a little sigh to boot. ‘Is it 2015 again already? You forget – I’m not actually a 13-year-old boy. Stuff like “are you afraid you’ll lose” or “are you too chicken” …?’ She gives an exaggerated shrug. ‘What can I tell you? It just doesn’t have much effect on me.’
‘Mmm, I think it has a little bit of an effect on you,’ he replies softly, and suddenly he seems to be very close to her. When did that happen? When did he inch forwards into her space, near enough that she imagines she can feel the heat from his body? Or, at least, one way or another, she’s newly aware of being very warm.
She can’t quite seem to formulate a response – it feels like she’s floundering, grasping for words just out of reach – when he stretches to grab one of the cues from the table. He places its tip on the ground between them with a gentle thud.
‘You can start,’ he says.
Then he reaches for the other cue, lifting the triangle rack from the balls and making his way to the other side of the table. He pushes the room’s door closed while he’s at it. Fia notices that.
She takes a shot, misses, and Benjamin grins, until his own foul just seconds later wipes the smile off his face.
Next, it’s Fia’s turn again, and this time, she hits it right into the pocket. She looks over at him, a half-smile pulling at her lips.
‘Jealousy is so unbecoming, Benjamin.’
He scoffs as he leans down, lining up his next move. His eyes flick from her to the ball and back again. ‘It’s early days, Irish. One half-decent shot? Who said I was jealous of that?’
She quirks one eyebrow, just a millimetre. ‘Who said I was talking about the game?’
Benjamin makes no reply, but she watches the muscles in his lower jaw clench, in what might be aggravation or might be concealed amusement – or might be the other thing: want. It is starting to feel as though perhaps they are all one and the same, anyway.
When he finally takes his shot, it’s perfect – a purple number four hurtling neatly into the top right-hand corner – and he straightens to meet her eyes again, thoroughly satisfied with himself now.
Fia just breaths out a little laugh. She reassumes her own shooting stance, ready to reassert her lead, eyeing up her next move. She is jittery, though, second guessing herself. From beyond that heavy wooden door, she can still hear muffled sounds of the party going on. But in here, it’s quiet. And there is no energy that crackles like potential.
Once or twice, she adjusts her positioning, just the slightest shifts in her hands, in the angle of her body. She doesn’t know if it would even be apparent to the average onlooker, but at this point, she expects nothing less than for Benjamin Lowry to notice, and to make a thing of it.
In fact, though, she doesn’t get any of his usual choice commentary. Instead, she hears his pool cue drop, and the next thing she knows, he’s striding purposefully over to her end of the table.
She rolls her eyes. ‘I swear to God, Ben, if you plan to instruct me on how to use this cue, I will shove it—’
That’s not what he plans, though, if indeed he’s planned this whatsoever. Actually, it doesn’t seem like he has. He’s a little like a man possessed as reaches her side – and then, with both hands, he pulls her into him, pressing his mouth to hers.
Fia’s stunned, both of her eyebrows shooting up, and together, they stumble backwards a little bit from the sheer force of their collision. As they steady themselves, though, she appears to be clutching at him just as desperately as he is her. How about that? It takes her brain a second to catch up to what her body seems to already know. Because, yes, she’s kissing him back with everything she has now, her hands moving to whatever parts of him she can reach, her blood coursing through her like liquid heat.
For his part, Benjamin’s equally frantic, but not sloppy with it – he kisses her as though he’s thought about this, wanted it, knew exactly what she’d like. When he lets his teeth catch just slightly on her lower lip, lets his tongue ghost across the skin he’s nipped, Fia doesn’t understand how every bit of tension in her body seems to drain away and ratchet up simultaneously. She’ll have to figure it out later, though. Because in this moment, she can’t think. She can only feel.
‘Oh my God!’ she exclaims, when eventually they pull apart. ‘What the fuck?!’
Benjamin says nothing, only looks at her, and there is something new in his expression – something that seems suddenly, deliciously, untamed. It makes Fia’s stomach clench anew, just the sight of it
As for the next thing, what she might tell Annie and Kavita later – if she decides to tell them at all – is that everything just happens so fast. This would be a complete lie.
All those years ago, in Benjamin’s little room at Camp Birchwood, that happened fast. And the kiss they’ve just pulled away from, that happened pretty damn quickly, too.
But this time around, the truth Fia might acknowledge only to herself is that she knows exactly what she is doing.
As Benjamin moves in towards her once more, it is extremely clear to her what is about to happen. She can feel his breath hot on her skin. She has so much time to stop this, so much time to exercise her better judgement. And yet, she doesn’t. When his lips finally meet hers again and they sink into one another, it’s five seconds before they’re right back to kissing hungrily, madly. The scent of him up close – that same scent she’s had lingering in her office for weeks now – makes Fia feel truly a bit lightheaded. She isn’t sure how long they stand there, hands grasping, tension building, but eventually, they break apart once more. It might be the need for air, or it might be the call of sanity beckoning.
They stare at one other, and as Fia’s heartbeat starts to slow to a normal rate, her eyes widen. The full significance of what has just happened hits her hard.
‘What the fuck,’ she says once again, but it’s less of an exclamation this time, less of a question. Instead, the words tumble out on a dazed sort of exhale.
‘You kissed me back,’ he murmurs, as though some part of him is actually telling himself that fact, as though he can’t altogether believe it’s true.
‘No, I know,’ she agrees immediately, and then she repeats it like a chant. ‘I know, I know. It’s just, like … this can’t be a good idea, can it? I mean, apart from anything else, I’m basically your boss.’
He rolls his eyes, suddenly entertained. ‘I don’t know how many times I need to break it to you that you’re not my boss, Irish.’
Fia barely hears him. ‘I just can’t believe this has happened!’ she exclaims. ‘Again!’
Benjamin looks at her for a moment, and when he speaks, there’s no ego in it. It’s simple, guileless. ‘Yeah, you can.’
For once, she finds herself disinclined to argue with him. ‘Yeah,’ she admits quietly. In a way it’s a relief, after all this time, to say it out loud. ‘I suppose I can.’
Still, though.
Boss or not, she knows for sure that the partners at the firm would not take kindly to this pairing. And even within the gossip and lore that exists below partner level, she absolutely does not want to be known as the woman who’s always up for a fling with one of the summer associates. That’s how it works, in the fishbowl that is ZOLA: you only have to do something once for it to stay with you forever.
Added to that, of course, there is the small matter of her ongoing divorce from Benjamin – all the cash and emotional energy she’s already spent with the direct aim of never speaking to him ever again.
Fia’s mind whirls as she thinks about all that – and then she thinks about Ryan, in the next room, assuming he’s on a promise tonight.
It’s a lot to assimilate at once.
‘I have to go,’ she blurts out.
Benjamin opens his mouth to say something – to protest, she imagines, although maybe she’s flattering herself. In any event, she jumps in again before he can get the words out.
‘No, honestly, I really do. My mam’s picking me up.’
It sounds incredibly childish, said out loud like that. Her New York self would never – could never – say such a thing. She’s projects nothing but independence there. It’s funny how all sorts of practical things – things you didn’t even particularly choose – can eventually come to make up your personality. Anyway, right now, what she’s just told Benjamin is the simple truth of the matter. When she called the house earlier, Fia barely had time to issue the request before her mother was rushing to hang up the phone, grab her car keys.
Even if she wanted to, it would be tricky at this point to have her mam arrive at Garrett Castle and then turn right back round again, without her.
Wouldshe want such a thing, if it were possible? Instinctively, Fia thinks that she would. Her instincts have been known to lead her badly astray in the past, though. And the feeling she had just a moment ago, with Benjamin’s hands on her hips – that sense of abandon … some very long-buried part of herself remembers that. She knows it can only end in disaster.
‘Okay,’ Benjamin replies, his eyes still fixed right on her. There’s a moment’s pause before he shakes his head a little. ‘God, your mother loves me,’ he adds then.
And it’s immediately obvious to Fia that he is in some sense letting her off the hook here – or letting both of them of the hook, maybe, allowing them to revert once more to something more playful, more arch, more like it was before they remembered how incredibly good they seem to be at kissing one another.
‘All right, steady on,’ Fia replies drily – because she can play her part, too.
‘I’m like the son she never had,’ Benjamin continues blithely, undeterred.
‘Well, I’ll make sure to mention that to the son she does have.’
He smiles, and there are another few seconds of quiet between them: an acknowledgement, Fia imagines, of the fact that this will probably never happen again, but that neither will regret it having happened tonight.
Or it could be none of that. She really does not know.
‘So, I’ll just … see you back at the office?’ he asks then, squinting over at her. Along with all their co-workers, he’s flying out first thing tomorrow. Fia will have a whole seven days here, without him.
‘Yeah,’ she replies softly. ‘I’ll see you back at the office.’